97 Little Forbidden Ground

Social policy Tony Little examines Gladstone’s role in the introduction and abolition of the Contagious Diseases Acts The Forbidden Ground Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts Despite their fter a Commons debate on military was added to the specified towns. The medical spending in May 1864, Sir John Trelawny, examination could be repeated at regular inter- quiet passage, the Athe Radical MP, recorded in his diary, ‘I vals for up to year. A further Act, in 1869, added took occasion to mention the necessity of provid- six further towns, and raised the maximum Contagious Dis- ing measures to protect soldiers near large towns detention to nine months.6 A number of colonies eases Acts proved from some contagious diseases & several members adopted similar arrangements but Scotland had its confirmed my advice’.1 Three weeks later the gov- own regime. to be some of the ernment chief whip 2 persuaded Trelawny to delay Despite their quiet passage, the Contagious a critical motion for a week to allow the navy Diseases Acts proved to be some of the most con- most controver- minister3 ‘to introduce 2 bills he has prepared & troversial of Victorian laws and the campaign get them read a second time.’ Trelawney assured against them is viewed as a pioneering feminist sial of Victorian him that he ‘was only concerned to see govern- crusade. Gladstone is not usually associated with ment move in the matter’.4 On 18 July 1864 he the Contagious Diseases Acts. But he was Chan- laws and the cam- concluded, cellor of the Exchequer in Palmerston’s government which passed the initial legislation. When paign against A morning sitting, whereat passed in commit- Russell’s government passed the second Act, he them is viewed as tee the Contagious Diseases Bill. Ayrton made was Chancellor and Leader of the House. By the a long & excellent speech in which he stated final Act, he was Prime Minister. Gladstone was a pioneering fem- numerous objections to the scheme. The com- an informed participant in policy formation. The mittee being in a singular practical state of mind campaign against the Acts was mainly a quar- inist crusade. & determined to abate a nuisance if its abatement rel among Liberals, commanded, on both sides, were possible, went through all the clauses with- by Liberals; the repealers better organised, their out a division.5 opponents better connected. No more than 10.7 per cent of Conservative MPs supported repeal Two days later, the bill received the royal assent. in any division.7 Consequently, it was Gladstone’s The Contagious Diseases Act applied in eight ministries that felt the impact of the campaigns English garrison towns, mostly in the south, and primarily through the activities of their own three in Ireland. A police inspector could bring supporters. a woman before a magistrate as a common pros- Richard Shannon titled the second volume titute, obliging her to be medically examined. of his Gladstone biography Heroic Minister8 and If she suffered from a venereal disease she could heroic leadership is the image that fairly describes be detained in a ‘lock’ hospital for up to three Gladstone’s battles for constitutional and fiscal months. The woman could avoid a court appear- reform. But politics is, often, more concerned ance by voluntarily submitting to examination. with damage limitation than famous victories. When the Act was renewed in 1866, hospital This article re-examines the repeal of the Con- detention was increased to six months with moral tagious Diseases Acts as an exercise in timid if and religious education provided and Windsor not cowardly government. How did Gladstone 6 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 The Forbidden Ground Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts William Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) in 1868 Journal of Liberal History 97 Winter 2017–18 7 The Forbidden Ground: Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts manage his government to meet the conflicting reclaiming the ‘unhappy creatures’, as leader of demands of the repealers and of the medical estab- the House, Gladstone cut short the debate, pro- lishment who wished to extend the legislation? posing they leave the details for the committee stage since the measure merely renewed the existing Act. 16 With the additional clauses for the The mischief may be reduced moral and religious education, the bill quickly With some of his university friends, Gladstone passed its remaining stages. had from the mid-1840s undertaken to perform Not satisfied, advocates of regulation founded ‘some regular work of charity’. Gradually this an Association for Promoting the Extension of the developed into rescuing of prostitutes in conjunc- Contagious Diseases Act of 1866 to the Civil Pop- tion with the House of Mercy at Clewer. His wife ulation, backed by the Lancet and the Harveian was fully associated with this work but was prob- Medical Society, the vice-chancellors of Oxford ably unaware of his anxiety about the temptations and Cambridge and thirty MPs.17 ‘The Conta- of the work that he confided to his diaries.9 Pri- gious Diseases Act should be extended to the civil vate concern about a moral evil became a public population’, William Acton argued, ‘for by means responsibility after the Crimean War. of its machinery alone can we discover and detain Following the poor performance of the army till cured the women afflicted with syphilitic dis- in Crimea, in 1857, a Royal Commission on the eases, and in no other way that has occurred to Health of the Army ‘noted the high level of vene- me can the supervision necessary for enabling us real disease among certain troops’.10 The com- to work a gradual improvement in their lives be mission collected statistics, discovering that obtained.’18 roughly one-third of army sick cases were vene- Gladstone’s first government extended regu- real, though for the navy it was only one in elev- lation a final time despite emerging opposition to en.11 At the prodding of Florence Nightingale, a the legislation. In 1868, Dr John Simon, the medi- departmental committee met, in 1862, and rec- cal officer of the Privy Council advised against ommended the establishment of specialist hospi- extension. The Rescue Society presented A Mem- tals, improved sanitary conditions and ‘innocent’ orandum of Objections to the home secretary, cir- occupations to relieve the tedium of life in bar- culating copies to members of both Houses of racks; but Sir John Liddell, director general of the Parliament, though their secretary feared that naval medical department, advocated a regulatory ‘very little effect was produced. The utmost apa- system to ‘arrest disease at its source’.12 thy prevailed; people would not believe our Gladstone participated from the beginning. words and would not stir.’19 On 25 July 1868 Glad- He disclosed his concerns about prostitution dur- stone read Senior on Ireland and Tracts on Conta- ing the 1857 divorce law debates, ‘I am afraid, as gious Diseases.20 He did not record his reaction. respects the gross evils of prostitution, that there When questioned on the Acts, in February is hardly any country in the world where they 1869, Gladstone responded cautiously ‘that Gov- prevail to a greater extent than in our own’.13 He ernment had under their consideration the course was similarly realistic about military behaviour, to be taken with respect to that Act’.21 ‘Con- doubting ‘the possibility of making a standing With some of his tagious Diseases Act Extension’ was the elev- army a moral institution’.14 enth item on the cabinet agenda for Saturday 24 Responding to Miss Nightingale’s Committee, university friends, April and, in May, they bought further time by Gladstone wrote, in a minute of 18 February 1862: appointing a select committee to consider the Gladstone had Acts.22 This produced the 1869 statute, which … we in this country multiply three or four- received the Royal Assent in August. fold a frightful evil among servants of the State from the mid- whom we induce and invite to place themselves in that class, while we know that by adoption 1840s undertaken The path of evil made more easy of means which are elsewhere adopted under to perform ‘some Opposition now began to mobilise. After the 1869 the direct authority of the Crown, the mischief Social Science Congress, Dr Charles Bell Tay- may be reduced within limits comparatively regular work of lor and Dr Charles Worth launched the National moderate. Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts Association.23 The charity’. Gradually movement took flight at the end of 1869 when the He suggested a parliamentary committee of the Daily News published a letter from 126 women ‘weightiest and most sensible men’ meeting ‘with this developed summarising liberal, moral, feminist and utili- closed doors’ to consider ‘a measure providing tarian objections to the regulations. The women that in the principal garrisons and arsenals of the into rescuing of claimed that: United Kingdom these women should be exam- • The Acts ‘remove every guarantee of per- ined and sent into hospital until cure’. He added prostitutes in con- sonal security which the law has established that ‘soldiers and seamen having the disease junction with the and held sacred, and put their reputation, should be subject to a special stoppage to meet the their freedom, and their persons absolutely in expense of their treatment’.15 House of Mercy at the power of the police.’ When two back benchers opposed the • By registering and inspecting prostitutes ‘the 1866 bill, regretting the lack of provision for Clewer. path of evil is

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